The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
Encyclopedia
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan is the second studio album
by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan
, released in May 1963 by Columbia Records
. Whereas his debut album Bob Dylan
had contained only two original songs, Freewheelin initiated the process of writing contemporary words to traditional melodies. Eleven of the thirteen songs on the album are original compositions by Dylan. The album kicks off with "Blowin' in the Wind
", which would become one of the anthems of the 1960s, and an international hit for folk trio Peter, Paul & Mary soon after the release of Freewheelin. The album featured several other songs which came to be regarded as amongst Dylan's best compositions and classics of the 1960s folk scene: "Girl from the North Country
", "Masters of War
", "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
" and "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
".
Dylan's lyrics embraced stories ripped from the headlines about civil rights and he articulated anxieties about the fear of nuclear warfare
. Balancing this political material were love songs, sometimes bitter and accusatory, and material that features surreal humor. Freewheelin showcased Dylan's songwriting talent for the first time, propelling him to national and international fame. The success of the album and Dylan's subsequent recognition led to his being named as "Spokesman of a Generation", a label Dylan came to resent.
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan reached number 22 in the US (eventually going platinum), and later became a number one hit in the UK in 1964. In 2003, the album was ranked number 97 on Rolling Stone
magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
. In 2002, Freewheelin was one of the first 50 recordings chosen by the Library of Congress
to be added to the National Recording Registry
.
, which sold only 5,000 copies in its first year, just enough to break even. In a pointed rebuke to John Hammond
, who had signed Dylan to Columbia Records
, some within the company referred to the singer as "Hammond's Folly" and suggested dropping his contract. Hammond defended Dylan vigorously and was determined that Dylan's second album should be a success. The recording of Freewheelin took place over the course of a year, from April 1962 to April 1963, and the album was assembled from eight recording sessions in the Columbia Records Studio A, 799 Seventh Avenue, in New York City.
Many critics have noted the extraordinary development of Dylan's songwriting immediately after completing his first album. Dylan biographer Clinton Heylin
connects the sudden increase in lyrics written along topical and political lines to the fact that Dylan had moved into an apartment on West 4th Street with his girlfriend Suze Rotolo
in January 1962. Rotolo's family had strong left-wing political commitments; both of her parents were members of the American Communist Party
. Dylan acknowledged her influence when he told an interviewer: "Suze was into this equality-freedom thing long before I was. I checked out the songs with her."
Dylan's relationship with Rotolo also provided an important emotional dynamic in the composition of the Freewheelin album. After six months of living with Dylan, Rotolo agreed to her mother's proposal that she travel to Italy to study art.Rotolo writes that "my mother did not approve of Bob at all. He paid her no homage and she paid him none". Rotolo suspected that her mother presented her with the trip to Italy "as a fait accompli" to lure her away from her relationship with Dylan. See Dylan missed her and wrote long letters to her conveying his hope that she would return soon to New York. She postponed her return several times, finally coming back in January 1963. Critics have connected the intense love songs expressing longing and loss on Freewheelin to Dylan’s fraught relationship with Rotolo. In her autobiography, Rotolo explains that musicians' girlfriends were routinely described as "chicks", and she resented being regarded as "a possession of Bob, who was the centre of attention".
The tremendous speed and facility with which Dylan wrote topical songs attracted the attention of other musicians in the New York folk scene. In a radio interview on WBAI
in June 1962, Pete Seeger
described Dylan as "the most prolific songwriter on the scene" and then asked Dylan how many songs he had written recently. Dylan replied, “I might go for two weeks without writing these songs. I write a lot of stuff. In fact, I wrote five songs last night but I gave all the papers away in some place called the Bitter End
.” Dylan also expressed the impersonal idea that the songs were not his own creation. In an interview with Sing Out!
magazine, Dylan said, "The songs are there. They exist all by themselves just waiting for someone to write them down. I just put them down on paper. If I didn't do it, somebody else would."
", "Rambling, Gambling Willie", and "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues
". He also recorded two traditional folk songs, "Going To New Orleans" and "Corrina, Corrina", and Hank Williams' "(I Heard That) Lonesome Whistle".
Returning to Studio A the following day, Dylan recorded his new song about fallout shelter
s, "Let Me Die In My Footsteps
". Other original compositions followed: "Rocks and Gravel", "Talking Hava Negiliah Blues", "Talking Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues", and two more takes of "Sally Gal". Dylan recorded cover versions of "Wichita", Big Joe Williams
's "Baby, Please Don't Go
", and Robert Johnson's "Milk Cow's Calf's Blues". Because Dylan's songwriting talent was developing so rapidly, nothing from the April sessions appeared on Freewheelin.
The recording sessions at Studio A resumed on July 9, when Dylan recorded "Blowin' in the Wind
", a song which he had first performed live at Gerde's Folk City
on April 16. Dylan also recorded "Bob Dylan's Blues", "Down the Highway", and "Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance", all of which ended up on Freewheelin, plus one original composition, "Baby, I'm in the Mood for You", which did not.
At this point, music manager Albert Grossman
began to take an interest in Dylan's business affairs. Grossman persuaded Dylan to transfer the publishing rights of his songs from Duchess Music, whom he had signed a contract with in January 1962, to Witmark Music, a division of Warner's music publishing operation. Dylan signed a contract with Witmark on July 13, 1962. Unknown to Dylan, Grossman had also negotiated a deal with Witmark. This gave Grossman fifty percent of Witmark's share of the publishing income generated by any songwriter Grossman had brought to the company. This "secret deal" resulted in a bitter legal battle between Dylan and Grossman in the 1980s.
Albert Grossman became Dylan's manager on August 20, 1962. Since Dylan was under twenty-one when he had signed his contract with CBS, Grossman argued that the contract was invalid and had to be re-negotiated. Instead, Hammond responded by inviting Dylan to his office and persuading him to sign a "reaffirment"—agreeing to abide by the original contract. This effectively neutralised Grossman's strategy, and led to some animosity between Grossman and Hammond. Grossman enjoyed a reputation in the folk scene of being commercially aggressive, generating more income and defending his clients' interests more fiercely than "the nicer, more amateurish managers in the Village". Dylan critic Andy Gill has suggested that Grossman encouraged Dylan to become more reclusive and aloof, even paranoid.
On September 22, Dylan appeared for the first time at Carnegie Hall
, part of an all-star hootenanny. On this occasion, he premiered his new composition "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
", a complex and powerful song built upon the question and answer refrain pattern of the traditional British ballad "Lord Randall
". "Hard Rain" would gain added resonance one month later, when President Kennedy
appeared on national television on October 22, and announced the discovery of Soviet missiles on the island of Cuba, initiating the Cuban Missile Crisis
. In the sleeve notes on the Freewheelin album, Nat Hentoff
quotes Dylan as saying that he wrote "Hard Rain" in response to the Cuban Missile Crisis: "Every line in it is actually the start of a whole new song. But when I wrote it, I thought I wouldn't have enough time alive to write all those songs so I put all I could into this one". In fact, Dylan had written the song more than a month before the crisis broke.
Dylan resumed work on Freewheelin at Columbia's Studio A on October 26, when a major innovation took place—Dylan made his first studio recordings with a backing band. Accompanied by Dick Wellstood
on piano, Howie Collins and Bruce Langhorne
on guitar, Leonard Gaskin
on bass, and Herb Lovelle on drums, Dylan recorded three songs. Several takes of Dylan's "Mixed-Up Confusion
" and Arthur Crudup
's "That's All Right Mama" were deemed unusable, but a master take of "Corrina, Corrina" was selected for the final album. An 'alternate take' of "Corrina, Corrina" from the same session would also be selected for a single issued later in the year. At the next recording session on November 1, the band included Art Davis
on bass, while jazz guitarist George Barnes
replaced Howie Collins. "Mixed-Up Confusion" and "That's All Right Mama" were re-recorded, and again the results were deemed unsatisfactory. A take of the third song, "Rocks and Gravel", was selected for the album, but the track was subsequently dropped.
On November 14, Dylan resumed work with his backup band, this time with Gene Ramsey on bass, devoting most of the session to recording "Mixed-Up Confusion". Although this track did not appear on Freewheelin, it was released as a single on December 14, 1962, and then swiftly withdrawn. Unlike the other material which Dylan recorded between 1961 and 1964, "Mixed-Up Confusion" attempted a rockabilly
sound. Cameron Crowe
described it as "a fascinating look at a folk artist with his mind wandering towards Elvis Presley
and Sun Records
".
Also recorded on November 14 was the new composition "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
", accompanied by a virtuoso guitar part played by Bruce Langhorne. (Clinton Heylin
writes that while the sleeve notes of Freewheelin describe this song as being accompanied by a backing band, only Langhorne is audible on the released version.) Langhorne then accompanied Dylan on three more original compositions: "Ballad of Hollis Brown
", "Kingsport Town", and "Whatcha Gonna Do", but these performances were not included on Freewheelin.
Dylan held another session at Studio A on December 6. Five songs, all original compositions, were recorded, three of which were eventually included on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan: "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall", "Oxford Town", and "I Shall Be Free". Dylan also made another attempt at "Whatcha Gonna Do" and recorded a new song, "Hero Blues", but both songs were ultimately rejected and left unreleased.
had heard Dylan perform in Greenwich Village, and invited him to take part in a BBC
television drama: The Madhouse on Castle Street
. Dylan arrived in London on December 17. In the play, Dylan performed "Blowin' in the Wind" and two other songs. Dylan also immersed himself in the London folk scene, making contact with the Troubadour folk club organizer Anthea Joseph and folksingers Martin Carthy
and Bob Davenport. "I ran into some people in England who really knew those [traditional English] songs," Dylan recalled in 1984. "Martin Carthy, another guy named [Bob] Davenport. Martin Carthy's incredible. I learned a lot of stuff from Martin."
Carthy taught Dylan two English songs that would prove important for the Freewheelin album. Carthy's arrangement of "Scarborough Fair
" would be used by Dylan as the basis of his own composition, "Girl from the North Country
". A 19th century ballad commemorating the death of Sir John Franklin in 1847,"Lady Franklin's Lament
", gave Dylan the melody for his composition "Bob Dylan's Dream
". Both songs displayed Dylan's fast-growing ability to take traditional melodies and use them as a basis for highly personal songwriting.
From England, Dylan traveled to Italy, and joined Albert Grossman, who was touring with his client Odetta
. Dylan was also hoping to make contact with his girlfriend, Suze Rotolo, unaware that she had already left Italy and was on her way back to New York. Dylan worked on his new material, and when he returned to London, Martin Carthy received a surprise: "When he came back from Italy, he'd written "Girl From the North Country"; he came down to the Troubadour and said, 'Hey, here's "Scarborough Fair"' and he started playing this thing."
Dylan's keenness to record his new material for Freewheelin paralleled a dramatic power struggle in the studio: Albert Grossman's determination to have John Hammond
replaced as Dylan's producer at CBS. According to Dylan biographer Howard Sounes
, "The two men could not have been more different. Hammond was a WASP
, so relaxed during recording sessions that he sat with feet up, reading The New Yorker
. Grossman was a Jewish businessman with a shady past, hustling to become a millionaire."
Because of Grossman's hostility to Hammond, Columbia paired Dylan with a young, African-American jazz producer, Tom Wilson. Wilson recalled: "I didn't even particularly like folk music. I'd been recording Sun Ra
and Coltrane
... I thought folk music was for the dumb guys. [Dylan] played like the dumb guys, but then these words came out. I was flabbergasted." At a recording session on April 24, produced by Wilson, Dylan recorded five new compositions: "Girl from the North Country", "Masters of War", "Talkin' World War III Blues", "Bob Dylan's Dream", and "Walls of Red Wing". "Walls of Red Wing" was ultimately rejected, but the other four were included in a revised album sequence.
The final drama of recording Freewheelin occurred when Dylan appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show
on May 12, 1963. Dylan had told Sullivan he would perform "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues", but the 'head of program practices' at CBS Television informed Dylan that this song was potentially libelous to the John Birch Society
, and asked him to perform another number. Rather than comply with TV censorship, Dylan refused to appear on the show. There is disagreement between Dylan's biographers about the consequences of this censorship row. Anthony Scaduto
writes that after the Ed Sullivan Show debacle, CBS lawyers were alarmed to discover that the controversial song was to be included on Dylan's new album, only a few weeks from its release date. They insisted that the song be dropped, and four songs ("John Birch", "Let Me Die In My Footsteps", "Rambling Gambling Willie", "Rocks and Gravel") on the album were replaced with Dylan's newer compositions recorded in April ("Girl from the North Country", "Masters of War", "Talkin' World War III Blues", "Bob Dylan's Dream"). Scaduto writes that Dylan felt "crushed" by being compelled to submit to censorship, but he was in no position to argue.
According to biographer Clinton Heylin
, "There remains a common belief that [Dylan] was forced by Columbia to pull "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" from the album after he walked out on The Ed Sullivan Show." However, the 'revised' version of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan was released on May 27, 1963; this would have given Columbia Records only two weeks to recut the album, reprint the record sleeves, and press and package enough copies of the new version to fill orders. Heylin suggests that CBS had probably forced Dylan to withdraw "John Birch" from the album some weeks earlier, and that Dylan had responded by recording his new material on April 24. Whether the songs were substituted before or after The Ed Sullivan Show, critics agree that the new material gave the album a more personal feel, endistanced from the traditional folk-blues material which had dominated his first album, Bob Dylan.
A few copies of the original pressing of the LP with the four deleted tracks have turned up over the years, despite Columbia's supposed destruction of all copies during the pre-release phase (all copies found were in the standard album sleeve with the revised track selection). Other permutations of the Freewheelin album include versions with a different running order of the tracks on the album, and a Canadian version of the album that listed the tracks in the wrong order. The original pressing of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan is considered the most valuable and rarest record in America, with one copy having sold for $35,000.
"Blowin' in the Wind" is among Dylan's most celebrated compositions. In his sleeve notes for The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991, John Bauldie writes that it was Pete Seeger
who first identified the melody of "Blowin' in the Wind" as Dylan's adaptation of the old Negro spiritual "No More Auction Block". According to Alan Lomax's The Folk Songs of North America, the song originated in Canada
and was sung by former slaves who fled there after Britain abolished slavery in 1833. In 1978, Dylan acknowledged the source when he told journalist Marc Rowland: '"Blowin' in the Wind" has always been a spiritual. I took it off a song called "No More Auction Block"—that's a spiritual and "Blowin' in the Wind" follows the same feeling.' Dylan's performance of "No More Auction Block" was recorded at the Gaslight Cafe in October 1962, and appeared on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991.
Critic Andy Gill wrote: Blowin' in the Wind' marked a huge jump in Dylan's songwriting: for the first time, Dylan discovered the effectiveness of moving from the particular to the general. Whereas 'The Ballad of Donald White' would become completely redundant as soon as the eponymous criminal was executed, a song as vague as 'Blowin' in the Wind' could be applied to just about any freedom issue. It remains the song with which Dylan's name is most inextricably linked, and safeguarded his reputation as a civil libertarian through any number of changes in style and attitude."
"Blowin' in the Wind" became world famous when Peter, Paul and Mary
issued the song as a single three weeks after the release of Freewheelin. They and Dylan both shared the same manager: Albert Grossman. The single sold a phenomenal three hundred thousand copies in the first week of release. On July 13, 1963, it reached number two on the Billboard
chart with sales exceeding one million copies. Dylan later recalled that he was astonished when Peter Yarrow
told him he was going to make $5,000 from the publishing rights.
"Girl from the North Country"
There has been much speculation in print about the identity of the girl in the song. Clinton Heylin states that the most frequently mooted candidates are Echo Helstrom, an early girlfriend of Dylan from his hometown of Hibbing
, and Suze Rotolo
, whom Dylan was pining for as he finished the song in Italy. Howard Sounes suggests the girl Dylan probably had in mind was Bonnie Beecher, a girlfriend of Dylan's when he was at the University of Minnesota
.An important recording of Dylan playing traditional material was taped in Beecher's apartment in December 1961. Misnamed the "Minneapolis Hotel Tape", the songs were released on the Great White Wonder
bootleg. See . Beecher subsequently married counter cultural figure Wavy Gravy
. Musicologist Todd Harvey notes that Dylan not only took the tune of "Scarborough Fair
", which he learnt from Martin Carthy in London, but also adapted the theme of that song. "Scarborough Fair" derives from "The Elfin Knight
" (Child Ballad Number 2), which was first transcribed in 1670. In the song, a supernatural character poses a series of questions to an innocent, requesting her to perform impossible tasks. Harvey points out that Dylan "retains the idea of the listener being sent upon a task, a northern place setting, and an antique lyric quality". Dylan returned to this song on Nashville Skyline
(1969), recording it as a duet with Johnny Cash
.
"Masters of War"
A scathing song directed against the war industry, "Masters of War" is based on Jean Ritchie
's arrangement of "Nottamun Town
", an English riddle song. Written in late 1962 while Dylan was in London, a number of eyewitnesses (including Martin Carthy and Anthea Joseph) recall Dylan performing the song in folk clubs at the time. Ritchie would later assert her claim on the song's arrangement; according to one Dylan biography, the suit was settled when Ritchie received $5,000 from Dylan's lawyers.
"Down the Highway"
Dylan composed this song in the form of a 12-bar blues. In the sleeve notes of Freewheelin’, Dylan explained to Nat Hentoff
: "What made the real blues singers so great is that they were able to state all the problems they had; but at the same time, they were standing outside of them and could look at them. And in that way, they had them beat." Into this song, Dylan injected one explicit mention of an absence that was troubling him: the sojourn of Suze Rotolo in Perugia
: “My baby took my heart from me/ She packed it all up in a suitcase/ Lord, she took it away to Italy, Italy.”
"Bob Dylan's Blues"
Dylan begins this track with a spoken intro where he describes the origins of folk songs in a satirical vein: "most of the songs that are written uptown in Tin Pan Alley
, that’s where most of the folk songs come from nowadays”. What follows has been characterized as an absurd, improvised blues which Dylan, in the sleeve notes, describes as "a really off-the-cuff-song. I start with an idea and then I feel what follows. Best way I can describe this one is that it’s sort of like walking by a side street. You gaze in and walk on." Harvey points out that Dylan subsequently elaborated this style of self-deprecatory, absurdist humor into more complex songs, such as "I Shall Be Free No.10" (1964).
"A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall"
Dylan was only 21 years old when he wrote one of his most complex songs, "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall", often referred to as "Hard Rain". Dylan is said to have premiered "Hard Rain" at the Gaslight Cafe
, where Village performer Peter Blankfield recalled: "He put out these pieces of loose-leaf paper ripped out of a spiral notebook. And he starts singing ['Hard Rain'] ... He finished singing it, and no one could say anything. The length of it, the episodic sense of it. Every line kept building and bursting". Dylan performed "Hard Rain" days later at Carnegie Hall
on September 22, 1962, as part of a concert organized by Pete Seeger
. The song gained added resonance when U.S. President John F. Kennedy
gave his warning to the Soviet Union over their deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba, just one month after Dylan's first performance of "Hard Rain". Critics have interpreted the lyric 'hard rain' as a reference to nuclear fallout
, but Dylan resisted the specificity of this interpretation. In a radio interview with Studs Terkel
in 1963, Dylan said,
Many people were astonished by the power and complexity of this work. For Robert Shelton, who had given Dylan an important boost in his 1961 review in the New York Times, this song was "a landmark in topical, folk-based songwriting. Here blooms the promised fruit of the 1950s poetry-jazz fusion of Ginsberg
, Ferlinghetti
, and Rexroth
." Folk singer Dave Van Ronk
later commented: "I was acutely aware that it represented the beginning of an artistic revolution." Pete Seeger
expressed the opinion that this song would last longer than any other written by Dylan.
Dylan wrote this song on hearing from Suze Rotolo that she was considering staying in Italy indefinitely, and he used a melody he adapted from Paul Clayton's song "Who's Gonna Buy You Ribbons (When I'm Gone)". In the Freewheelin sleeve notes, Dylan comments: "It isn't a love song. It's a statement that maybe you can say to make yourself feel better. It's as if you were talking to yourself."
Dylan's contemporaries hailed the song as a masterpiece: Bob Spitz quotes Paul Stookey saying "I thought it was a masterful statement", while Dave Van Ronk
called it "self-pitying but brilliant". Dylan biographer Howard Sounes
commented: "The greatness of the song was in the cleverness of the language. The phrase "don't think twice, it's all right" could be snarled, sung with resignation, or delivered with an ambiguous mixture of bitterness and regret. Seldom have the contradictory emotions of a thwarted lover been so well expressed, and the song transcended the autobiographical origins of Dylan's pain."
"Bob Dylan's Dream"
"Bob Dylan's Dream" was based on the melody of the traditional "Lady Franklin's Lament
", in which the title character dreams of finding her husband, Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin, alive and well. (Sir John Franklin had vanished on an expedition searching for the North West Passage in 1845; a stone cairn
on King William Island
detailing his demise was found by a later expedition in 1859.) Todd Harvey points out that Dylan transforms the song into a personal journey, yet he retains both the theme and the mood of the original ballad. The world outside is depicted as stormy and harsh, and Dylan's most fervent wish, like Lady Franklin's, is to be reunited with departed companions and to relive the fond memories they represent.
"Oxford Town"
"Oxford Town" is Dylan's sardonic account of events at the University of Mississippi
in September 1962. U.S. Air Force veteran James Meredith
was the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi
, located a mile from Oxford
, Mississippi
. When Meredith first tried to attend classes at the school, a number of Mississippians pledged to keep the university segregated, including the state governor Ross Barnett
. Ultimately, the University of Mississippi had to be integrated with the help of U.S. federal troops. Dylan responded rapidly: his song was published in the November 1962 issue of Broadside.
"Talkin' World War III Blues"
The "talkin' blues" was a style of improvised songwriting that Woody Guthrie
had developed to a high plane. (A Minneapolis domestic recording that Dylan made in September 1960 includes his performances of Guthrie's "Talking Columbia" and "Talking Merchant Marine".) "Talkin' World War III Blues" was a spontaneous composition Dylan created in the studio during the final session for The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. He recorded five takes of the song and the fifth was selected for the album. The format of the "talkin' blues" permitted Dylan to address the serious subject of nuclear annihilation with humor, and "without resorting to his finger-pointing or apocalyptical-prophetic persona".
"Corrina, Corrina"
"Corrina, Corrina" was recorded by the Mississippi Sheiks, and by their leader Bo Carter
in 1928. The song was covered by artists as diverse as Bob Wills
, Big Joe Turner
, and Doc Watson
. Dylan's version borrows phrases from a few Robert Johnson songs: "Stones In My Passway", "32-20 Blues", and "Hellhound On My Trail". An alternate take of the song was used as a B-side for his "Mixed-Up Confusion
" single.
"Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance"
"Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance" is based on "Honey, Won't You Allow Me One More Chance?", a song dating back to the 1890s that was popularized by Henry Thomas in his 1928 recording. "However, Thomas's original provided no more than a song title and a notion", writes Heylin, "which Dylan turned into a personal plea to an absent lover to allow him 'one more chance to get along with you.' It is a vocal tour de force and ... showed a Dylan prepared to make light of his own blues by using the form itself."
"I Shall Be Free"
"I Shall Be Free" is a rewrite of Leadbelly
's "We Shall Be Free", which was performed by Leadbelly
, Sonny Terry
, Cisco Houston
, and Woody Guthrie
. According to Todd Harvey, Dylan's version draws its melody from the Guthrie recording but omits its signature chorus ("We'll soon be free/When the Lord will call us home"). Critics have been divided about the worth of this final song. Robert Shelton dismissed the song as "a decided anticlimax. Although the album has at least a half dozen blockbusters, two of the weakest songs are tucked in at the end, like shirttails." Todd Harvey has argued that by placing the song at the close of the Freewheelin LP, Dylan ends on a note of levity which is a relief after the weighty sentiments expressed in several songs on the album.
at the Monterey Folk Festival, where she joined him on stage for a duet of a new Dylan song, "With God on Our Side
". Baez was at the pinnacle of her fame, having appeared on the cover of Time
magazine the previous November. The performance not only gave Dylan and his songs a new prominence, it also marked the beginning of a romantic relationship between Baez and Dylan, the start of what Dylan biographer Sounes termed "one of the most celebrated love affairs of the decade".
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan was released at the end of May. According to Scaduto, it was an immediate success, selling 10,000 copies a month and bringing Dylan an income of about $2,500 a month. An article by Nat Hentoff on folk music appeared in the June issue of Playboy
magazine and devoted considerable space to Dylan's achievements, calling him "the most vital of the younger citybillies".
In July, Dylan appeared at the second Newport Folk Festival
. That weekend, Peter, Paul and Mary
's rendition of "Blowin' in the Wind" reached number two on Billboard
s pop chart. Baez was also at Newport, appearing twice on stage with Dylan. The combination of the chart success of "Blowin' in the Wind", and the glamor of Baez and Dylan singing together generated excitement about Dylan and his new album. Tom Paxton
recalled: "That was a big breakout festival for Bob. The buzz kept growing exponentially and it was like a coronation of Bob and Joan. They were King and Queen of the festival". His friend Bob Fass
recalled that after Newport, Dylan told him that "suddenly I just can't walk around without a disguise. I used to walk around and go wherever I wanted. But now it's gotten very weird. People follow me into the men's room just so they can say that they saw me pee."
In September, the album entered Billboards album charts; the highest position Freewheelin reached was number 22, but it eventually came to sell one million copies in the US. Dylan himself came to acknowledge Freewheelin as the album that marked the start of his success. During his dispute with Albert Grossman, Dylan stated in a deposition: "Although I didn't know it at the time, the second album was destined to become a great success because it was to include 'Blowin' in the Wind'." Besides "Blowin' in the Wind", "Masters of War", "Girl from the North Country", "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" and "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" have all been acclaimed as masterpieces, and they have been mainstays of Dylan's performing repertory to the present day. The album's balance between serious subject matter and levity, earnest finger-pointing songs and surreal jokes captured a wide audience, including The Beatles
, who were on the cusp of global success. John Lennon
recalled: "In Paris in 1964 was the first time I ever heard Dylan at all. Paul
got the record (The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan) from a French DJ. For three weeks in Paris we didn't stop playing it. We all went potty about Dylan."
. It was taken in February 1963—a few weeks after Rotolo had returned from Italy—by CBS
staff photographer Don Hunstein at the corner of Jones Street and West 4th Street in Greenwich Village
, New York City, close to the apartment where the couple lived at the time. In 2008, Rotolo described the circumstances surrounding the famous photo to The New York Times
: "He wore a very thin jacket, because image was all. Our apartment was always cold, so I had a sweater on, plus I borrowed one of his big, bulky sweaters. On top of that I put on a coat. So I felt like an Italian sausage. Every time I look at that picture, I think I look fat." In her memoir, A Freewheelin' Time, Rotolo analyzed the significance of the cover image:
Critic Janet Maslin
summed up the iconic impact of the cover as "a photograph that inspired countless young men to hunch their shoulders, look distant, and let the girl do the clinging".
The album was re-released in 2010 with new liner notes by Greil Marcus
.
and the growing movement for civil rights: his mixture of moral authority and nonconformity was perhaps the most timely of his attributes."
This title of "Spokesman of a Generation" was viewed by Dylan with disgust in later years. He came to feel it was a label that the media had pinned on him, and in his autobiography, Chronicles, Dylan wrote: "The press never let up. Once in a while I would have to rise up and offer myself for an interview so they wouldn't beat the door down. Later an article would hit the streets with the headline "Spokesman Denies That He's A Spokesman". I felt like a piece of meat that someone had thrown to the dogs."
The album secured for Dylan an "unstoppable cult following" of fans who preferred the harshness of his performances to the softer cover versions released by other singers. Richard Williams
has suggested that the richness of the imagery in Freewheelin transformed Dylan into a key performer for a burgeoning college audience hungry for a new cultural complexity: "For students whose exam courses included Eliot
and Yeats, here was something that flattered their expanding intellect while appealing to the teenage rebel in their early-sixties souls. James Dean
had walked around reading James Joyce
; here were both in a single package, the words and the attitude set to music." Andy Gill adds that in the few months between the release of Freewheelin in May 1963, and Dylan's next album The Times They Are A-Changin'
in January 1964, Dylan became the hottest property in American music, stretching the boundaries of what had been previously viewed as a collegiate folk music audience.
Critical opinion about Freewheelin has been consistently favorable in the years since its release. Dylan biographer Howard Sounes
called it "Bob Dylan's first great album". In a survey of Dylan’s work published by Q
magazine in 2000, the Freewheelin’ album was described as “easily the best of [Dylan’s] acoustic albums and a quantum leap from his debut—which shows the frantic pace at which Dylan’s mind was moving.” The magazine went on to comment, “You can see why this album got the Beatles listening. The songs at its core must have sounded like communiques from another plane.”
For Patrick Humphries, "rarely has one album so effectively reflected the times which produced it. Freewheelin spoke directly to the concerns of its audience. and addressed them in a mature and reflective manner: it mirrored the state of the nation." Stephen Thomas Erlewine’s
verdict on the album in the Allmusic guide was: “It's hard to overestimate the importance of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, the record that firmly established Dylan as an unparalleled songwriter ... This is rich, imaginative music, capturing the sound and spirit of America as much as that of Louis Armstrong
, Hank Williams, or Elvis Presley
. Dylan, in many ways, recorded music that equaled this, but he never topped it.”
In March 2000, Van Morrison
told the Irish rock magazine Hot Press about the impact that Freewheelin made on him: "I think I heard it in a record shop in Smith Street. And I just thought it was incredible that this guy's not singing about 'moon in June' and he's getting away with it. That's what I thought at the time. The subject matter wasn't pop songs, ya know, and I thought this kind of opens the whole thing up ... Dylan put it into the mainstream that this could be done."
Freewheelin was one of 50 recordings chosen by the Library of Congress
to be added to the National Recording Registry
in 2002. The citation read: "This album is considered by some to be the most important collection of original songs issued in the 1960s. It includes "Blowin' in the Wind," the era's popular and powerful protest anthem." The following year, Rolling Stone
magazine ranked it number 97 on their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
(this ranking would later be changed to number 98 in the published book version of the list).
Side one
Side two
Some very early first pressing copies contained 4 songs that were ultimately replaced by Columbia on all subsequent pressings. These songs were "Rocks And Gravel", "Let Me Die In My Footsteps," "Gamblin' Willie's Dead Man's Hand" and "Talkin' John Birch Blues". Copies of the "original" version of "Freewheelin'" (in both mono and stereo) are very rare and fetch hefty sums on the collectors market.
The original track listing was as follows:
Side one
Side two
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, released in May 1963 by Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
. Whereas his debut album Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (album)
Bob Dylan is the debut album by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in March 1962 on Columbia Records. It features two original compositions, the rest being old folk standards, and was produced by Columbia's legendary talent scout John H...
had contained only two original songs, Freewheelin initiated the process of writing contemporary words to traditional melodies. Eleven of the thirteen songs on the album are original compositions by Dylan. The album kicks off with "Blowin' in the Wind
Blowin' in the Wind
"Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan and released on his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in 1963. Although it has been described as a protest song, it poses a series of questions about peace, war and freedom...
", which would become one of the anthems of the 1960s, and an international hit for folk trio Peter, Paul & Mary soon after the release of Freewheelin. The album featured several other songs which came to be regarded as amongst Dylan's best compositions and classics of the 1960s folk scene: "Girl from the North Country
Girl from the North Country
"Girl from the North Country" is a song written by Bob Dylan. It was first released in 1963 as the second track on Dylan's second studio album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. Dylan re-recorded the song as a duet with Johnny Cash in 1969. That recording became the first track on Nashville Skyline,...
", "Masters of War
Masters of War
"Masters of War" is a song by Bob Dylan, written over the winter of 1962-63 and released on the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in the spring of 1963. The song's melody was adapted from the traditional "Nottamun Town"...
", "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
"A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" is a song written by Bob Dylan in the summer of 1962. It was first recorded in Columbia Records' Studio A on 6 December 1962 for his second album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The lyric structure is based on the question and answer form of the traditional ballad "Lord...
" and "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
"Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1962, and released on the 1963 album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.-Context:...
".
Dylan's lyrics embraced stories ripped from the headlines about civil rights and he articulated anxieties about the fear of nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
. Balancing this political material were love songs, sometimes bitter and accusatory, and material that features surreal humor. Freewheelin showcased Dylan's songwriting talent for the first time, propelling him to national and international fame. The success of the album and Dylan's subsequent recognition led to his being named as "Spokesman of a Generation", a label Dylan came to resent.
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan reached number 22 in the US (eventually going platinum), and later became a number one hit in the UK in 1964. In 2003, the album was ranked number 97 on Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is the title of a 2003 special issue of American magazine Rolling Stone, and a related book published in 2005.Related news articles:...
. In 2002, Freewheelin was one of the first 50 recordings chosen by the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
to be added to the National Recording Registry
National Recording Registry
The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States." The registry was established by the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, which created the National Recording...
.
Recording sessions
Both critics and the public took little notice of Dylan's debut album, Bob DylanBob Dylan (album)
Bob Dylan is the debut album by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in March 1962 on Columbia Records. It features two original compositions, the rest being old folk standards, and was produced by Columbia's legendary talent scout John H...
, which sold only 5,000 copies in its first year, just enough to break even. In a pointed rebuke to John Hammond
John H. Hammond
John Henry Hammond II was an American record producer, musician and music critic from the 1930s to the early 1980s...
, who had signed Dylan to Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
, some within the company referred to the singer as "Hammond's Folly" and suggested dropping his contract. Hammond defended Dylan vigorously and was determined that Dylan's second album should be a success. The recording of Freewheelin took place over the course of a year, from April 1962 to April 1963, and the album was assembled from eight recording sessions in the Columbia Records Studio A, 799 Seventh Avenue, in New York City.
Political and personal background
Clinton Heylin
Clinton Heylin is an English author who has written extensively about popular music and the work of Bob Dylan.- Education :...
connects the sudden increase in lyrics written along topical and political lines to the fact that Dylan had moved into an apartment on West 4th Street with his girlfriend Suze Rotolo
Suze Rotolo
Susan Elizabeth Rotolo , known as Suze Rotolo , was an American artist, but is perhaps best known as Bob Dylan's girlfriend between 1961 and 1964 and a strong influence on his music...
in January 1962. Rotolo's family had strong left-wing political commitments; both of her parents were members of the American Communist Party
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
. Dylan acknowledged her influence when he told an interviewer: "Suze was into this equality-freedom thing long before I was. I checked out the songs with her."
Dylan's relationship with Rotolo also provided an important emotional dynamic in the composition of the Freewheelin album. After six months of living with Dylan, Rotolo agreed to her mother's proposal that she travel to Italy to study art.Rotolo writes that "my mother did not approve of Bob at all. He paid her no homage and she paid him none". Rotolo suspected that her mother presented her with the trip to Italy "as a fait accompli" to lure her away from her relationship with Dylan. See Dylan missed her and wrote long letters to her conveying his hope that she would return soon to New York. She postponed her return several times, finally coming back in January 1963. Critics have connected the intense love songs expressing longing and loss on Freewheelin to Dylan’s fraught relationship with Rotolo. In her autobiography, Rotolo explains that musicians' girlfriends were routinely described as "chicks", and she resented being regarded as "a possession of Bob, who was the centre of attention".
The tremendous speed and facility with which Dylan wrote topical songs attracted the attention of other musicians in the New York folk scene. In a radio interview on WBAI
WBAI
WBAI, a part of the Pacifica Radio Network, is a non-commercial, listener-supported radio station, broadcasting at 99.5 FM in New York City.Its programming is leftist/progressive, and a mixture of political news and opinion from a leftist perspective, tinged with aspects of its complex and varied...
in June 1962, Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
described Dylan as "the most prolific songwriter on the scene" and then asked Dylan how many songs he had written recently. Dylan replied, “I might go for two weeks without writing these songs. I write a lot of stuff. In fact, I wrote five songs last night but I gave all the papers away in some place called the Bitter End
The Bitter End
The Bitter End is a nightclub in New York City's Greenwich Village. It opened its doors in 1961 at 147 Bleecker Street under the auspices of owner Fred Weintraub. The club changed its name to The Other End during the 1970s...
.” Dylan also expressed the impersonal idea that the songs were not his own creation. In an interview with Sing Out!
Sing Out!
Sing Out! is a quarterly journal of folk music and folk songs that has been published since May 1950.-Background:Sing Out! is the primary publication of the tax exempt, not-for-profit, educational corporation of the same name...
magazine, Dylan said, "The songs are there. They exist all by themselves just waiting for someone to write them down. I just put them down on paper. If I didn't do it, somebody else would."
Recording in New York
Dylan began work on his second album at Columbia's Studio A in New York on April 24, 1962. The album was provisionally entitled Bob Dylan's Blues, and as late as July 1962, this would remain the working title. At this session, Dylan recorded four of his own compositions: "Sally Gal", "The Death of Emmett TillThe Death of Emmett Till
"The Death of Emmett Till", also known as "The Ballad of Emmett Till", is a song by American musician Bob Dylan about the murder of Emmett Till, which occurred on August 28, 1955. Till, a 14-year-old African American, was killed on August 28, 1955 by two white men, reportedly after flirting with a...
", "Rambling, Gambling Willie", and "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues
Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues
Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues, also known as Talkin' John Birch Society Blues and Talkin' John Birch Blues, is a talking blues song written by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in 1962. It is a satirical song, in which a paranoid narrator is convinced that communists, or "Reds" as he calls them, are...
". He also recorded two traditional folk songs, "Going To New Orleans" and "Corrina, Corrina", and Hank Williams' "(I Heard That) Lonesome Whistle".
Returning to Studio A the following day, Dylan recorded his new song about fallout shelter
Fallout shelter
A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designed to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War....
s, "Let Me Die In My Footsteps
Let Me Die In My Footsteps
Let Me Die in My Footsteps is a song written by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in February 1962. The song was selected for the original sequence of Dylan's 1963 album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, but was replaced by "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall"...
". Other original compositions followed: "Rocks and Gravel", "Talking Hava Negiliah Blues", "Talking Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues", and two more takes of "Sally Gal". Dylan recorded cover versions of "Wichita", Big Joe Williams
Big Joe Williams
Joseph Lee Williams , billed throughout his career as Big Joe Williams, was an American Delta blues guitarist, singer and songwriter, notable for the distinctive sound of his nine-string guitar...
's "Baby, Please Don't Go
Baby, Please Don't Go
"Baby, Please Don't Go" is a blues song first recorded by Big Joe Williams in 1935. It is related to a group of early 20th century blues and work songs that include "I'm Alabama Bound", "Another Man Done Gone", and "Don't Leave Me Here", and "Turn Your Lamp Down Low".It has become a blues and rock...
", and Robert Johnson's "Milk Cow's Calf's Blues". Because Dylan's songwriting talent was developing so rapidly, nothing from the April sessions appeared on Freewheelin.
The recording sessions at Studio A resumed on July 9, when Dylan recorded "Blowin' in the Wind
Blowin' in the Wind
"Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan and released on his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in 1963. Although it has been described as a protest song, it poses a series of questions about peace, war and freedom...
", a song which he had first performed live at Gerde's Folk City
Gerde's Folk City
Gerdes Folk City was a music venue in the West Village in New York City. Initially opened as a restaurant called Gerdes, by owner Mike Porco, it eventually began to present occasional incidental music. It was located at 11 West 4th Street , having moved in 1970 to 130 West 3rd Street before finally...
on April 16. Dylan also recorded "Bob Dylan's Blues", "Down the Highway", and "Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance", all of which ended up on Freewheelin, plus one original composition, "Baby, I'm in the Mood for You", which did not.
At this point, music manager Albert Grossman
Albert Grossman
Albert Bernard Grossman was an American entrepreneur and manager in the American folk music scene and rock and roll. He was most famous as the manager of Bob Dylan between 1962 and 1970.-Biography:...
began to take an interest in Dylan's business affairs. Grossman persuaded Dylan to transfer the publishing rights of his songs from Duchess Music, whom he had signed a contract with in January 1962, to Witmark Music, a division of Warner's music publishing operation. Dylan signed a contract with Witmark on July 13, 1962. Unknown to Dylan, Grossman had also negotiated a deal with Witmark. This gave Grossman fifty percent of Witmark's share of the publishing income generated by any songwriter Grossman had brought to the company. This "secret deal" resulted in a bitter legal battle between Dylan and Grossman in the 1980s.
Albert Grossman became Dylan's manager on August 20, 1962. Since Dylan was under twenty-one when he had signed his contract with CBS, Grossman argued that the contract was invalid and had to be re-negotiated. Instead, Hammond responded by inviting Dylan to his office and persuading him to sign a "reaffirment"—agreeing to abide by the original contract. This effectively neutralised Grossman's strategy, and led to some animosity between Grossman and Hammond. Grossman enjoyed a reputation in the folk scene of being commercially aggressive, generating more income and defending his clients' interests more fiercely than "the nicer, more amateurish managers in the Village". Dylan critic Andy Gill has suggested that Grossman encouraged Dylan to become more reclusive and aloof, even paranoid.
On September 22, Dylan appeared for the first time at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
, part of an all-star hootenanny. On this occasion, he premiered his new composition "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
"A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" is a song written by Bob Dylan in the summer of 1962. It was first recorded in Columbia Records' Studio A on 6 December 1962 for his second album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The lyric structure is based on the question and answer form of the traditional ballad "Lord...
", a complex and powerful song built upon the question and answer refrain pattern of the traditional British ballad "Lord Randall
Lord Randall
"Lord Randall", or "Lord Randal", is an Anglo-Scottish border ballad, a traditional ballad consisting of dialogue. The different versions follow the same general lines: the primary character is poisoned, usually by his sweetheart; this is revealed through a conversation where he reports on the...
". "Hard Rain" would gain added resonance one month later, when President Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
appeared on national television on October 22, and announced the discovery of Soviet missiles on the island of Cuba, initiating the Cuban Missile Crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
. In the sleeve notes on the Freewheelin album, Nat Hentoff
Nat Hentoff
Nathan Irving "Nat" Hentoff is an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media and writes regularly on jazz and country music for The Wall Street Journal....
quotes Dylan as saying that he wrote "Hard Rain" in response to the Cuban Missile Crisis: "Every line in it is actually the start of a whole new song. But when I wrote it, I thought I wouldn't have enough time alive to write all those songs so I put all I could into this one". In fact, Dylan had written the song more than a month before the crisis broke.
Dylan resumed work on Freewheelin at Columbia's Studio A on October 26, when a major innovation took place—Dylan made his first studio recordings with a backing band. Accompanied by Dick Wellstood
Dick Wellstood
Richard MacQueen "Dick" Wellstood was an American jazz pianist...
on piano, Howie Collins and Bruce Langhorne
Bruce Langhorne
Bruce Langhorne is an American folk musician. He was active in the Greenwich Village folk scene in the 1960s, primarily as a session guitarist for folk albums and performances...
on guitar, Leonard Gaskin
Leonard Gaskin
Leonard Gaskin was an American jazz bassist born in New York City.Gaskin played on the early bebop scene at Minton's and Monroe's in New York in the early 1940s...
on bass, and Herb Lovelle on drums, Dylan recorded three songs. Several takes of Dylan's "Mixed-Up Confusion
Mixed-Up Confusion
Mixed-Up Confusion is a song written and recorded by Bob Dylan.It was recorded with an electric band on November 14th 1962 during the sessions for The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, but was not used on that album, which was entirely acoustic. Instead the song, backed with "Corrina, Corrina", a...
" and Arthur Crudup
Arthur Crudup
Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup was an American Delta blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known outside blues circles for writing songs such as "That's All Right" , "My Baby Left Me" and "So Glad You're Mine", later covered by Elvis Presley and dozens of other artists.-Career:Arthur Crudup...
's "That's All Right Mama" were deemed unusable, but a master take of "Corrina, Corrina" was selected for the final album. An 'alternate take' of "Corrina, Corrina" from the same session would also be selected for a single issued later in the year. At the next recording session on November 1, the band included Art Davis
Art Davis
Art Davis was a double-bassist, known for his work with various seminal jazz musicians including Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, and Max Roach.-Biography:...
on bass, while jazz guitarist George Barnes
George Barnes (musician)
George Barnes was a world-renowned swing jazz guitarist, who claimed he played the first electric guitar in 1931, preceding Charlie Christian by six years. George Barnes made the first recording of an electric guitar in 1938 in sessions with Big Bill Broonzy.-Biography:George Barnes was born in...
replaced Howie Collins. "Mixed-Up Confusion" and "That's All Right Mama" were re-recorded, and again the results were deemed unsatisfactory. A take of the third song, "Rocks and Gravel", was selected for the album, but the track was subsequently dropped.
On November 14, Dylan resumed work with his backup band, this time with Gene Ramsey on bass, devoting most of the session to recording "Mixed-Up Confusion". Although this track did not appear on Freewheelin, it was released as a single on December 14, 1962, and then swiftly withdrawn. Unlike the other material which Dylan recorded between 1961 and 1964, "Mixed-Up Confusion" attempted a rockabilly
Rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...
sound. Cameron Crowe
Cameron Crowe
Cameron Bruce Crowe is an American screenwriter and film director. Before moving into the film industry, Crowe was a contributing editor at Rolling Stone magazine, for which he still frequently writes....
described it as "a fascinating look at a folk artist with his mind wandering towards Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
and Sun Records
Sun Records
Sun Records is a record label founded in Memphis, Tennessee, starting operations on March 27, 1952.Founded by Sam Phillips, Sun Records was known for giving notable musicians such as Elvis Presley , Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and Johnny Cash...
".
Also recorded on November 14 was the new composition "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
"Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1962, and released on the 1963 album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.-Context:...
", accompanied by a virtuoso guitar part played by Bruce Langhorne. (Clinton Heylin
Clinton Heylin
Clinton Heylin is an English author who has written extensively about popular music and the work of Bob Dylan.- Education :...
writes that while the sleeve notes of Freewheelin describe this song as being accompanied by a backing band, only Langhorne is audible on the released version.) Langhorne then accompanied Dylan on three more original compositions: "Ballad of Hollis Brown
Ballad of Hollis Brown
"Ballad of Hollis Brown" is a blues song written by Bob Dylan, released in 1964 on his third album The Times They Are A-Changin. The song tells the story of a South Dakota farmer, who overwhelmed by the desperation of poverty, kills his wife, children and then himself.- Structure :Musically, this...
", "Kingsport Town", and "Whatcha Gonna Do", but these performances were not included on Freewheelin.
Dylan held another session at Studio A on December 6. Five songs, all original compositions, were recorded, three of which were eventually included on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan: "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall", "Oxford Town", and "I Shall Be Free". Dylan also made another attempt at "Whatcha Gonna Do" and recorded a new song, "Hero Blues", but both songs were ultimately rejected and left unreleased.
Traveling to England
Twelve days later, Dylan made his first trip abroad. British TV director Philip SavillePhilip Saville
Philip Saville is a British television direction and screenwriting from the late 1950s...
had heard Dylan perform in Greenwich Village, and invited him to take part in a BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
television drama: The Madhouse on Castle Street
The Madhouse on Castle Street
Madhouse on Castle Street is a British television play, broadcast by BBC Television on the evening of 13 January 1963, as part of the Sunday Night Play strand. It was written by Evan Jones and directed by Philip Saville...
. Dylan arrived in London on December 17. In the play, Dylan performed "Blowin' in the Wind" and two other songs. Dylan also immersed himself in the London folk scene, making contact with the Troubadour folk club organizer Anthea Joseph and folksingers Martin Carthy
Martin Carthy
Martin Carthy MBE is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon and later artists such as Richard Thompson since he emerged as a young musician in the early days...
and Bob Davenport. "I ran into some people in England who really knew those [traditional English] songs," Dylan recalled in 1984. "Martin Carthy, another guy named [Bob] Davenport. Martin Carthy's incredible. I learned a lot of stuff from Martin."
Carthy taught Dylan two English songs that would prove important for the Freewheelin album. Carthy's arrangement of "Scarborough Fair
Scarborough Fair
"Scarborough Fair" is a traditional ballad of the United Kingdom.The song tells the tale of a young man, who tells the listener to ask his former lover to perform for him a series of impossible tasks, such as making him a shirt without a seam and then washing it in a dry well, adding that if she...
" would be used by Dylan as the basis of his own composition, "Girl from the North Country
Girl from the North Country
"Girl from the North Country" is a song written by Bob Dylan. It was first released in 1963 as the second track on Dylan's second studio album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. Dylan re-recorded the song as a duet with Johnny Cash in 1969. That recording became the first track on Nashville Skyline,...
". A 19th century ballad commemorating the death of Sir John Franklin in 1847,"Lady Franklin's Lament
Lady Franklin's Lament
"Lady Franklin's Lament" is a broadside ballad indexed by George Malcolm Laws commemorating the loss of Sir John Franklin's British Arctic Expedition of 1845...
", gave Dylan the melody for his composition "Bob Dylan's Dream
Bob Dylan's Dream
"Bob Dylan's Dream" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1963. It was recorded by Dylan on April 24, 1963, and was released by Columbia Records a month later on the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan....
". Both songs displayed Dylan's fast-growing ability to take traditional melodies and use them as a basis for highly personal songwriting.
From England, Dylan traveled to Italy, and joined Albert Grossman, who was touring with his client Odetta
Odetta
Odetta Holmes, known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals...
. Dylan was also hoping to make contact with his girlfriend, Suze Rotolo, unaware that she had already left Italy and was on her way back to New York. Dylan worked on his new material, and when he returned to London, Martin Carthy received a surprise: "When he came back from Italy, he'd written "Girl From the North Country"; he came down to the Troubadour and said, 'Hey, here's "Scarborough Fair"' and he started playing this thing."
Returning to New York
Dylan flew back to New York on January 16, 1963. In January and February, he recorded some of his new compositions in sessions for the folk magazine Broadside, including a new anti-war song, "Masters of War", which he had composed in London. Dylan was happy to be reunited with Suze Rotolo, and he persuaded her to move back into the apartment they had shared on West 4th Street.Dylan's keenness to record his new material for Freewheelin paralleled a dramatic power struggle in the studio: Albert Grossman's determination to have John Hammond
John H. Hammond
John Henry Hammond II was an American record producer, musician and music critic from the 1930s to the early 1980s...
replaced as Dylan's producer at CBS. According to Dylan biographer Howard Sounes
Howard Sounes
Howard Sounes is a British author, journalist and biographer.Howard Sounes began his career as a newspaper journalist as a staff reporter for the Sunday Mirror. He broke major stories concerning one of the most notorious murder cases in British criminal history, that of Fred West and Rosemary West...
, "The two men could not have been more different. Hammond was a WASP
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant or WASP is an informal term, often derogatory or disparaging, for a closed group of high-status Americans mostly of British Protestant ancestry. The group supposedly wields disproportionate financial and social power. When it appears in writing, it is usually used to...
, so relaxed during recording sessions that he sat with feet up, reading The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
. Grossman was a Jewish businessman with a shady past, hustling to become a millionaire."
Because of Grossman's hostility to Hammond, Columbia paired Dylan with a young, African-American jazz producer, Tom Wilson. Wilson recalled: "I didn't even particularly like folk music. I'd been recording Sun Ra
Sun Ra
Sun Ra was a prolific jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy," musical compositions and performances. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama...
and Coltrane
Coltrane
John Coltrane was a jazz saxophonist.Coltrane may also refer to:* Coltrane , an album by John Coltrane from Prestige* Coltrane , an album by John Coltrane from Impulse!...
... I thought folk music was for the dumb guys. [Dylan] played like the dumb guys, but then these words came out. I was flabbergasted." At a recording session on April 24, produced by Wilson, Dylan recorded five new compositions: "Girl from the North Country", "Masters of War", "Talkin' World War III Blues", "Bob Dylan's Dream", and "Walls of Red Wing". "Walls of Red Wing" was ultimately rejected, but the other four were included in a revised album sequence.
The final drama of recording Freewheelin occurred when Dylan appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show
The Ed Sullivan Show
The Ed Sullivan Show is an American TV variety show that originally ran on CBS from Sunday June 20, 1948 to Sunday June 6, 1971, and was hosted by New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan....
on May 12, 1963. Dylan had told Sullivan he would perform "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues", but the 'head of program practices' at CBS Television informed Dylan that this song was potentially libelous to the John Birch Society
John Birch Society
The John Birch Society is an American political advocacy group that supports anti-communism, limited government, a Constitutional Republic and personal freedom. It has been described as radical right-wing....
, and asked him to perform another number. Rather than comply with TV censorship, Dylan refused to appear on the show. There is disagreement between Dylan's biographers about the consequences of this censorship row. Anthony Scaduto
Anthony Scaduto
Anthony Scaduto is a journalist and biographer of rock musicians. His most famous work is Dylan, a biography of Bob Dylan, first published in 1972...
writes that after the Ed Sullivan Show debacle, CBS lawyers were alarmed to discover that the controversial song was to be included on Dylan's new album, only a few weeks from its release date. They insisted that the song be dropped, and four songs ("John Birch", "Let Me Die In My Footsteps", "Rambling Gambling Willie", "Rocks and Gravel") on the album were replaced with Dylan's newer compositions recorded in April ("Girl from the North Country", "Masters of War", "Talkin' World War III Blues", "Bob Dylan's Dream"). Scaduto writes that Dylan felt "crushed" by being compelled to submit to censorship, but he was in no position to argue.
According to biographer Clinton Heylin
Clinton Heylin
Clinton Heylin is an English author who has written extensively about popular music and the work of Bob Dylan.- Education :...
, "There remains a common belief that [Dylan] was forced by Columbia to pull "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" from the album after he walked out on The Ed Sullivan Show." However, the 'revised' version of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan was released on May 27, 1963; this would have given Columbia Records only two weeks to recut the album, reprint the record sleeves, and press and package enough copies of the new version to fill orders. Heylin suggests that CBS had probably forced Dylan to withdraw "John Birch" from the album some weeks earlier, and that Dylan had responded by recording his new material on April 24. Whether the songs were substituted before or after The Ed Sullivan Show, critics agree that the new material gave the album a more personal feel, endistanced from the traditional folk-blues material which had dominated his first album, Bob Dylan.
A few copies of the original pressing of the LP with the four deleted tracks have turned up over the years, despite Columbia's supposed destruction of all copies during the pre-release phase (all copies found were in the standard album sleeve with the revised track selection). Other permutations of the Freewheelin album include versions with a different running order of the tracks on the album, and a Canadian version of the album that listed the tracks in the wrong order. The original pressing of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan is considered the most valuable and rarest record in America, with one copy having sold for $35,000.
Side One
"Blowin' in the Wind""Blowin' in the Wind" is among Dylan's most celebrated compositions. In his sleeve notes for The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991, John Bauldie writes that it was Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
who first identified the melody of "Blowin' in the Wind" as Dylan's adaptation of the old Negro spiritual "No More Auction Block". According to Alan Lomax's The Folk Songs of North America, the song originated in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and was sung by former slaves who fled there after Britain abolished slavery in 1833. In 1978, Dylan acknowledged the source when he told journalist Marc Rowland: '"Blowin' in the Wind" has always been a spiritual. I took it off a song called "No More Auction Block"—that's a spiritual and "Blowin' in the Wind" follows the same feeling.' Dylan's performance of "No More Auction Block" was recorded at the Gaslight Cafe in October 1962, and appeared on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991.
Critic Andy Gill wrote: Blowin' in the Wind' marked a huge jump in Dylan's songwriting: for the first time, Dylan discovered the effectiveness of moving from the particular to the general. Whereas 'The Ballad of Donald White' would become completely redundant as soon as the eponymous criminal was executed, a song as vague as 'Blowin' in the Wind' could be applied to just about any freedom issue. It remains the song with which Dylan's name is most inextricably linked, and safeguarded his reputation as a civil libertarian through any number of changes in style and attitude."
"Blowin' in the Wind" became world famous when Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary were an American folk-singing trio whose nearly 50-year career began with their rise to become a paradigm for 1960s folk music. The trio was composed of Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey and Mary Travers...
issued the song as a single three weeks after the release of Freewheelin. They and Dylan both shared the same manager: Albert Grossman. The single sold a phenomenal three hundred thousand copies in the first week of release. On July 13, 1963, it reached number two on the Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
chart with sales exceeding one million copies. Dylan later recalled that he was astonished when Peter Yarrow
Peter Yarrow
Peter Yarrow is an American singer who found fame with the 1960s folk music trio Peter, Paul and Mary. Yarrow co-wrote one of the group's most famous songs, "Puff, the Magic Dragon"...
told him he was going to make $5,000 from the publishing rights.
"Girl from the North Country"
There has been much speculation in print about the identity of the girl in the song. Clinton Heylin states that the most frequently mooted candidates are Echo Helstrom, an early girlfriend of Dylan from his hometown of Hibbing
Hibbing, Minnesota
Hibbing is a city in Saint Louis County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 16,361 at the 2010 census. The city was built on the rich iron ore of the Mesabi Iron Range. At the edge of town is the largest open-pit iron mine in the world. U.S...
, and Suze Rotolo
Suze Rotolo
Susan Elizabeth Rotolo , known as Suze Rotolo , was an American artist, but is perhaps best known as Bob Dylan's girlfriend between 1961 and 1964 and a strong influence on his music...
, whom Dylan was pining for as he finished the song in Italy. Howard Sounes suggests the girl Dylan probably had in mind was Bonnie Beecher, a girlfriend of Dylan's when he was at the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
.An important recording of Dylan playing traditional material was taped in Beecher's apartment in December 1961. Misnamed the "Minneapolis Hotel Tape", the songs were released on the Great White Wonder
Great White Wonder
Great White Wonder, or GWW, is the first notable rock bootleg album, released in July of 1969 and containing unofficially released recordings by Bob Dylan. It is also the first release of the famous bootleg record label Trademark of Quality...
bootleg. See . Beecher subsequently married counter cultural figure Wavy Gravy
Wavy Gravy
Wavy Gravy is an American entertainer and activist for peace, best known for his hippie appearance, personality and beliefs. His moniker...
. Musicologist Todd Harvey notes that Dylan not only took the tune of "Scarborough Fair
Scarborough Fair
"Scarborough Fair" is a traditional ballad of the United Kingdom.The song tells the tale of a young man, who tells the listener to ask his former lover to perform for him a series of impossible tasks, such as making him a shirt without a seam and then washing it in a dry well, adding that if she...
", which he learnt from Martin Carthy in London, but also adapted the theme of that song. "Scarborough Fair" derives from "The Elfin Knight
The Elfin Knight
"The Elfin Knight" is a traditional Scottish folk ballad of which there are many versions, all dealing with supernatural occurrences, and the commission to perform impossible tasks.-Synopsis:...
" (Child Ballad Number 2), which was first transcribed in 1670. In the song, a supernatural character poses a series of questions to an innocent, requesting her to perform impossible tasks. Harvey points out that Dylan "retains the idea of the listener being sent upon a task, a northern place setting, and an antique lyric quality". Dylan returned to this song on Nashville Skyline
Nashville Skyline
Nashville Skyline is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's ninth studio album, released by Columbia Records in April 1969.The album marked a dramatic departure for Dylan, previously known for his groundbreaking, poetic folk music and rock and roll...
(1969), recording it as a duet with Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
.
"Masters of War"
A scathing song directed against the war industry, "Masters of War" is based on Jean Ritchie
Jean Ritchie
Jean Ritchie is an American folk singer, songwriter, and Appalachian dulcimer player.- Out of Kentucky :Abigail and Balis Ritchie of Viper, Kentucky had 14 children, and Jean was the youngest...
's arrangement of "Nottamun Town
Nottamun Town
Nottamun Town is an English folk song which possibly dates from the late medieval period. It is popular in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States.-Lyrics:Most version of the song run along these lines:...
", an English riddle song. Written in late 1962 while Dylan was in London, a number of eyewitnesses (including Martin Carthy and Anthea Joseph) recall Dylan performing the song in folk clubs at the time. Ritchie would later assert her claim on the song's arrangement; according to one Dylan biography, the suit was settled when Ritchie received $5,000 from Dylan's lawyers.
"Down the Highway"
Dylan composed this song in the form of a 12-bar blues. In the sleeve notes of Freewheelin’, Dylan explained to Nat Hentoff
Nat Hentoff
Nathan Irving "Nat" Hentoff is an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media and writes regularly on jazz and country music for The Wall Street Journal....
: "What made the real blues singers so great is that they were able to state all the problems they had; but at the same time, they were standing outside of them and could look at them. And in that way, they had them beat." Into this song, Dylan injected one explicit mention of an absence that was troubling him: the sojourn of Suze Rotolo in Perugia
Perugia
Perugia is the capital city of the region of Umbria in central Italy, near the River Tiber, and the capital of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area....
: “My baby took my heart from me/ She packed it all up in a suitcase/ Lord, she took it away to Italy, Italy.”
"Bob Dylan's Blues"
Dylan begins this track with a spoken intro where he describes the origins of folk songs in a satirical vein: "most of the songs that are written uptown in Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...
, that’s where most of the folk songs come from nowadays”. What follows has been characterized as an absurd, improvised blues which Dylan, in the sleeve notes, describes as "a really off-the-cuff-song. I start with an idea and then I feel what follows. Best way I can describe this one is that it’s sort of like walking by a side street. You gaze in and walk on." Harvey points out that Dylan subsequently elaborated this style of self-deprecatory, absurdist humor into more complex songs, such as "I Shall Be Free No.10" (1964).
"A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall"
Dylan was only 21 years old when he wrote one of his most complex songs, "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall", often referred to as "Hard Rain". Dylan is said to have premiered "Hard Rain" at the Gaslight Cafe
The Gaslight Cafe
The Gaslight Cafe was an American coffee house located in the basement of 116 MacDougal Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York...
, where Village performer Peter Blankfield recalled: "He put out these pieces of loose-leaf paper ripped out of a spiral notebook. And he starts singing ['Hard Rain'] ... He finished singing it, and no one could say anything. The length of it, the episodic sense of it. Every line kept building and bursting". Dylan performed "Hard Rain" days later at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
on September 22, 1962, as part of a concert organized by Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
. The song gained added resonance when U.S. President John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
gave his warning to the Soviet Union over their deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba, just one month after Dylan's first performance of "Hard Rain". Critics have interpreted the lyric 'hard rain' as a reference to nuclear fallout
Nuclear fallout
Fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and shock wave have passed. It commonly refers to the radioactive dust and ash created when a nuclear weapon explodes...
, but Dylan resisted the specificity of this interpretation. In a radio interview with Studs Terkel
Studs Terkel
Louis "Studs" Terkel was an American author, historian, actor, and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for The Good War, and is best remembered for his oral histories of common Americans, and for hosting a long-running radio show in Chicago.-Early...
in 1963, Dylan said,
"No, it's not atomic rain, it's just a hard rain. It isn't the fallout rain. I mean some sort of end that's just gotta happen .... In the last verse, when I say, 'the pellets of poison are flooding the waters', that means all the lies that people get told on their radios and in their newspapers."
Many people were astonished by the power and complexity of this work. For Robert Shelton, who had given Dylan an important boost in his 1961 review in the New York Times, this song was "a landmark in topical, folk-based songwriting. Here blooms the promised fruit of the 1950s poetry-jazz fusion of Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is an American poet, painter, liberal activist, and the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers...
, and Rexroth
Kenneth Rexroth
Kenneth Rexroth was an American poet, translator and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement...
." Folk singer Dave Van Ronk
Dave Van Ronk
Dave Van Ronk was an American folk singer, born in Brooklyn, New York, who settled in Greenwich Village, New York, and was eventually nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street" ....
later commented: "I was acutely aware that it represented the beginning of an artistic revolution." Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
expressed the opinion that this song would last longer than any other written by Dylan.
Side Two
"Don't Think Twice, It's All Right"Dylan wrote this song on hearing from Suze Rotolo that she was considering staying in Italy indefinitely, and he used a melody he adapted from Paul Clayton's song "Who's Gonna Buy You Ribbons (When I'm Gone)". In the Freewheelin sleeve notes, Dylan comments: "It isn't a love song. It's a statement that maybe you can say to make yourself feel better. It's as if you were talking to yourself."
Dylan's contemporaries hailed the song as a masterpiece: Bob Spitz quotes Paul Stookey saying "I thought it was a masterful statement", while Dave Van Ronk
Dave Van Ronk
Dave Van Ronk was an American folk singer, born in Brooklyn, New York, who settled in Greenwich Village, New York, and was eventually nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street" ....
called it "self-pitying but brilliant". Dylan biographer Howard Sounes
Howard Sounes
Howard Sounes is a British author, journalist and biographer.Howard Sounes began his career as a newspaper journalist as a staff reporter for the Sunday Mirror. He broke major stories concerning one of the most notorious murder cases in British criminal history, that of Fred West and Rosemary West...
commented: "The greatness of the song was in the cleverness of the language. The phrase "don't think twice, it's all right" could be snarled, sung with resignation, or delivered with an ambiguous mixture of bitterness and regret. Seldom have the contradictory emotions of a thwarted lover been so well expressed, and the song transcended the autobiographical origins of Dylan's pain."
"Bob Dylan's Dream"
"Bob Dylan's Dream" was based on the melody of the traditional "Lady Franklin's Lament
Lady Franklin's Lament
"Lady Franklin's Lament" is a broadside ballad indexed by George Malcolm Laws commemorating the loss of Sir John Franklin's British Arctic Expedition of 1845...
", in which the title character dreams of finding her husband, Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin, alive and well. (Sir John Franklin had vanished on an expedition searching for the North West Passage in 1845; a stone cairn
Cairn
Cairn is a term used mainly in the English-speaking world for a man-made pile of stones. It comes from the or . Cairns are found all over the world in uplands, on moorland, on mountaintops, near waterways and on sea cliffs, and also in barren desert and tundra areas...
on King William Island
King William Island
King William Island is an island in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut and forms part of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. In area it is between and making it the 61st largest island in the world and Canada's 15th largest island...
detailing his demise was found by a later expedition in 1859.) Todd Harvey points out that Dylan transforms the song into a personal journey, yet he retains both the theme and the mood of the original ballad. The world outside is depicted as stormy and harsh, and Dylan's most fervent wish, like Lady Franklin's, is to be reunited with departed companions and to relive the fond memories they represent.
"Oxford Town"
"Oxford Town" is Dylan's sardonic account of events at the University of Mississippi
University of Mississippi
The University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, is a public, coeducational research university located in Oxford, Mississippi. Founded in 1844, the school is composed of the main campus in Oxford, four branch campuses located in Booneville, Grenada, Tupelo, and Southaven as well as the...
in September 1962. U.S. Air Force veteran James Meredith
James Meredith
James H. Meredith is an American civil rights movement figure, a writer, and a political adviser. In 1962, he was the first African American student admitted to the segregated University of Mississippi, an event that was a flashpoint in the American civil rights movement. Motivated by President...
was the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi
University of Mississippi
The University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, is a public, coeducational research university located in Oxford, Mississippi. Founded in 1844, the school is composed of the main campus in Oxford, four branch campuses located in Booneville, Grenada, Tupelo, and Southaven as well as the...
, located a mile from Oxford
Oxford, Mississippi
Oxford is a city in, and the county seat of, Lafayette County, Mississippi, United States. Founded in 1835, it was named after the British university city of Oxford in hopes of having the state university located there, which it did successfully attract....
, Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
. When Meredith first tried to attend classes at the school, a number of Mississippians pledged to keep the university segregated, including the state governor Ross Barnett
Ross Barnett
Ross Robert Barnett was the governor of Mississippi from 1960 to 1964. He was a States' Rights Democrat.- Early life :...
. Ultimately, the University of Mississippi had to be integrated with the help of U.S. federal troops. Dylan responded rapidly: his song was published in the November 1962 issue of Broadside.
"Talkin' World War III Blues"
The "talkin' blues" was a style of improvised songwriting that Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
had developed to a high plane. (A Minneapolis domestic recording that Dylan made in September 1960 includes his performances of Guthrie's "Talking Columbia" and "Talking Merchant Marine".) "Talkin' World War III Blues" was a spontaneous composition Dylan created in the studio during the final session for The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. He recorded five takes of the song and the fifth was selected for the album. The format of the "talkin' blues" permitted Dylan to address the serious subject of nuclear annihilation with humor, and "without resorting to his finger-pointing or apocalyptical-prophetic persona".
"Corrina, Corrina"
"Corrina, Corrina" was recorded by the Mississippi Sheiks, and by their leader Bo Carter
Bo Carter
Armenter "Bo Carter" Chatmon was an American early blues musician. He was a member of the Mississippi Sheiks in concerts, and on a few of their recordings...
in 1928. The song was covered by artists as diverse as Bob Wills
Bob Wills
James Robert Wills , better known as Bob Wills, was an American Western Swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader, considered by music authorities as the co-founder of Western Swing and universally known as the pioneering King of Western Swing.Bob Wills' name will forever be associated with...
, Big Joe Turner
Big Joe Turner
Big Joe Turner was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri. According to the songwriter Doc Pomus, "Rock and roll would have never happened without him." Although he came to his greatest fame in the 1950s with his pioneering rock and roll recordings, particularly "Shake, Rattle and...
, and Doc Watson
Doc Watson
Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson is an American guitar player, songwriter and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues and gospel music. He has won seven Grammy awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Watson's flatpicking skills and knowledge of traditional American music are highly regarded...
. Dylan's version borrows phrases from a few Robert Johnson songs: "Stones In My Passway", "32-20 Blues", and "Hellhound On My Trail". An alternate take of the song was used as a B-side for his "Mixed-Up Confusion
Mixed-Up Confusion
Mixed-Up Confusion is a song written and recorded by Bob Dylan.It was recorded with an electric band on November 14th 1962 during the sessions for The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, but was not used on that album, which was entirely acoustic. Instead the song, backed with "Corrina, Corrina", a...
" single.
"Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance"
"Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance" is based on "Honey, Won't You Allow Me One More Chance?", a song dating back to the 1890s that was popularized by Henry Thomas in his 1928 recording. "However, Thomas's original provided no more than a song title and a notion", writes Heylin, "which Dylan turned into a personal plea to an absent lover to allow him 'one more chance to get along with you.' It is a vocal tour de force and ... showed a Dylan prepared to make light of his own blues by using the form itself."
"I Shall Be Free"
"I Shall Be Free" is a rewrite of Leadbelly
Leadbelly
Huddie William Ledbetter was an iconic American folk and blues musician, notable for his strong vocals, his virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the songbook of folk standards he introduced....
's "We Shall Be Free", which was performed by Leadbelly
Leadbelly
Huddie William Ledbetter was an iconic American folk and blues musician, notable for his strong vocals, his virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the songbook of folk standards he introduced....
, Sonny Terry
Sonny Terry
Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry was a blind American Piedmont blues musician. He was widely known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers, and imitations of trains and fox hunts.-Career:Terry was born in Greensboro, Georgia...
, Cisco Houston
Cisco Houston
Gilbert Vandine 'Cisco' Houston was an American folk singer and songwriter who is closely associated with Woody Guthrie due to their extensive history of recording together....
, and Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
. According to Todd Harvey, Dylan's version draws its melody from the Guthrie recording but omits its signature chorus ("We'll soon be free/When the Lord will call us home"). Critics have been divided about the worth of this final song. Robert Shelton dismissed the song as "a decided anticlimax. Although the album has at least a half dozen blockbusters, two of the weakest songs are tucked in at the end, like shirttails." Todd Harvey has argued that by placing the song at the close of the Freewheelin LP, Dylan ends on a note of levity which is a relief after the weighty sentiments expressed in several songs on the album.
Outtakes
The known outtakes from the Freewheelin album are as follows. All songs released in 1991 on The Bootleg Series 1–3 are discussed in that album's liner notes, while songs that have never been released have been documented by biographer Clinton Heylin, except where noted. All songs written by Bob Dylan, except where noted.| Title | Status |
|---|---|
| "Baby, I'm in the Mood for You" | Released on Biograph Biograph (album) Biograph is a 53-track compilation spanning the career of Bob Dylan, from his 1962 debut album to the 1981 LP Shot of Love. Released in 1985 by Columbia Records, on both a 5-LP and a 3-CD Box set, it was one of the earliest and most successful examples of the CD Box set... |
| "Baby, Please Don't Go Baby, Please Don't Go "Baby, Please Don't Go" is a blues song first recorded by Big Joe Williams in 1935. It is related to a group of early 20th century blues and work songs that include "I'm Alabama Bound", "Another Man Done Gone", and "Don't Leave Me Here", and "Turn Your Lamp Down Low".It has become a blues and rock... " (Big Joe Williams Big Joe Williams Joseph Lee Williams , billed throughout his career as Big Joe Williams, was an American Delta blues guitarist, singer and songwriter, notable for the distinctive sound of his nine-string guitar... ) |
Released on iTunes' Exclusive Outtakes From No Direction Home EP Extended play An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact... |
| "Ballad of Hollis Brown Ballad of Hollis Brown "Ballad of Hollis Brown" is a blues song written by Bob Dylan, released in 1964 on his third album The Times They Are A-Changin. The song tells the story of a South Dakota farmer, who overwhelmed by the desperation of poverty, kills his wife, children and then himself.- Structure :Musically, this... " |
Freewheelin sessions recordings unreleased. Re-recorded for Dylan's next album, The Times They Are a-Changin The Times They Are a-Changin' The Times They Are a-Changin opens with the title track, one of Dylan's most famous songs. Dylan's friend, Tony Glover, recalls visiting Dylan's apartment in September 1963, where he saw a number of song manuscripts and poems lying on a table. "The Times They Are a-Changin'" had yet to be recorded,... . Demo version released on The Bootleg Series Vol. 9 – The Witmark Demos: 1962–1964 |
| "The Death of Emmett Till The Death of Emmett Till "The Death of Emmett Till", also known as "The Ballad of Emmett Till", is a song by American musician Bob Dylan about the murder of Emmett Till, which occurred on August 28, 1955. Till, a 14-year-old African American, was killed on August 28, 1955 by two white men, reportedly after flirting with a... " |
Freewheelin sessions recordings unreleased. Recording for "Broadside Show" on WBAI-FM, May 1962, released on Folkways Records Folkways Records Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987, and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways.-History:... ' Broadside Ballads, Vol. 6: Broadside Reunion under pseudonym Blind Boy Grunt. Demo version released on The Bootleg Series Vol. 9 – The Witmark Demos: 1962–1964 |
| "Hero Blues" | Freewheelin sessions recordings unreleased. Demo version released on The Bootleg Series Vol. 9 – The Witmark Demos: 1962–1964 |
| "Going to New Orleans" | Unreleased |
| "(I Heard That) Lonesome Whistle" (Hank Williams, Jimmie Davies) |
Unreleased |
| "Kingsport Town" (traditional) |
Released on The Bootleg Series 1–3 |
| "Let Me Die In My Footsteps Let Me Die In My Footsteps Let Me Die in My Footsteps is a song written by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in February 1962. The song was selected for the original sequence of Dylan's 1963 album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, but was replaced by "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall"... " |
Released on The Bootleg Series 1–3 |
| "Milk Cow's Calf's Blues" (Robert Johnson) |
Unreleased |
| "Mixed-Up Confusion Mixed-Up Confusion Mixed-Up Confusion is a song written and recorded by Bob Dylan.It was recorded with an electric band on November 14th 1962 during the sessions for The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, but was not used on that album, which was entirely acoustic. Instead the song, backed with "Corrina, Corrina", a... " |
Released as a single Single (music) In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear... , but quickly withdrawn. Later released in 1985 on Biograph Biograph (album) Biograph is a 53-track compilation spanning the career of Bob Dylan, from his 1962 debut album to the 1981 LP Shot of Love. Released in 1985 by Columbia Records, on both a 5-LP and a 3-CD Box set, it was one of the earliest and most successful examples of the CD Box set... |
| "Quit Your Lowdown Ways" | Released on The Bootleg Series 1–3 |
| "Rambling, Gambling Willie" | Released on The Bootleg Series 1–3 |
| "Rocks and Gravel" | Studio version unreleased. Released as a live recording from the Gaslight Cafe, October 1962, on Live at the Gaslight 1962 Live at The Gaslight 1962 Live at The Gaslight 1962 is a single CD release including ten songs from early Bob Dylan performances at the Gaslight cafe in New York City's Greenwich Village... |
| "Sally Gal" | Released on No Direction Home: The Bootleg Series Vol. 7 The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack is the third most recent installment in the Bob Dylan "Bootleg Series" of rare and/or officially unissued recordings.... |
| "Talkin' Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues" | Released on The Bootleg Series 1–3 |
| "Talkin' Hava Negiliah Blues" | Released on The Bootleg Series 1–3 |
| "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues, also known as Talkin' John Birch Society Blues and Talkin' John Birch Blues, is a talking blues song written by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in 1962. It is a satirical song, in which a paranoid narrator is convinced that communists, or "Reds" as he calls them, are... " |
Freewheelin sessions recordings unreleased. Released as a live recording from Carnegie Hall, October 26, 1963, on The Bootleg Series 1–3. Demo version released on The Bootleg Series Vol. 9 – The Witmark Demos: 1962–1964 |
| "That's All Right (Mama)" (Arthur Crudup Arthur Crudup Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup was an American Delta blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known outside blues circles for writing songs such as "That's All Right" , "My Baby Left Me" and "So Glad You're Mine", later covered by Elvis Presley and dozens of other artists.-Career:Arthur Crudup... ) |
Unreleased |
| "Walls of Red Wing Walls of Red Wing Walls of Red Wing is a folk and protest song, written by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Originally recorded for Dylan's second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, it was never used, and eventually attempted for his next work, The Times They Are a-Changin, but, again, this version was never... " |
Released on The Bootleg Series 1–3 |
| "Whatcha Gonna Do" | Freewheelin sessions recordings unreleased. Demo version released on The Bootleg Series Vol. 9 – The Witmark Demos: 1962–1964 |
| "Wichita (Goin' to Louisiana)" (traditional) |
Unreleased |
| "Worried Blues" (traditional) |
Released on The Bootleg Series 1–3 |
Release
Dylan promoted his upcoming album with a number of radio appearances and concert performances. In May 1963, Dylan performed with Joan BaezJoan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
at the Monterey Folk Festival, where she joined him on stage for a duet of a new Dylan song, "With God on Our Side
With God on Our Side
"With God on Our Side" is a song by Bob Dylan, released as the third track on his 1964 album The Times They Are A-Changin. Dylan first performed the song during his debut at The Town Hall in New York City on April 12, 1963...
". Baez was at the pinnacle of her fame, having appeared on the cover of Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine the previous November. The performance not only gave Dylan and his songs a new prominence, it also marked the beginning of a romantic relationship between Baez and Dylan, the start of what Dylan biographer Sounes termed "one of the most celebrated love affairs of the decade".
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan was released at the end of May. According to Scaduto, it was an immediate success, selling 10,000 copies a month and bringing Dylan an income of about $2,500 a month. An article by Nat Hentoff on folk music appeared in the June issue of Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
magazine and devoted considerable space to Dylan's achievements, calling him "the most vital of the younger citybillies".
In July, Dylan appeared at the second Newport Folk Festival
Newport Folk Festival
The Newport Folk Festival is an American annual folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the previously established Newport Jazz Festival...
. That weekend, Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary were an American folk-singing trio whose nearly 50-year career began with their rise to become a paradigm for 1960s folk music. The trio was composed of Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey and Mary Travers...
's rendition of "Blowin' in the Wind" reached number two on Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
s pop chart. Baez was also at Newport, appearing twice on stage with Dylan. The combination of the chart success of "Blowin' in the Wind", and the glamor of Baez and Dylan singing together generated excitement about Dylan and his new album. Tom Paxton
Tom Paxton
Thomas Richard Paxton is an American folk singer and singer-songwriter who has been writing, performing and recording music for over forty years...
recalled: "That was a big breakout festival for Bob. The buzz kept growing exponentially and it was like a coronation of Bob and Joan. They were King and Queen of the festival". His friend Bob Fass
Bob Fass
Bob Fass is an American radio personality and pioneer of free-form radio, who has broadcast in the New York region for 40 years....
recalled that after Newport, Dylan told him that "suddenly I just can't walk around without a disguise. I used to walk around and go wherever I wanted. But now it's gotten very weird. People follow me into the men's room just so they can say that they saw me pee."
In September, the album entered Billboards album charts; the highest position Freewheelin reached was number 22, but it eventually came to sell one million copies in the US. Dylan himself came to acknowledge Freewheelin as the album that marked the start of his success. During his dispute with Albert Grossman, Dylan stated in a deposition: "Although I didn't know it at the time, the second album was destined to become a great success because it was to include 'Blowin' in the Wind'." Besides "Blowin' in the Wind", "Masters of War", "Girl from the North Country", "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" and "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" have all been acclaimed as masterpieces, and they have been mainstays of Dylan's performing repertory to the present day. The album's balance between serious subject matter and levity, earnest finger-pointing songs and surreal jokes captured a wide audience, including The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, who were on the cusp of global success. John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
recalled: "In Paris in 1964 was the first time I ever heard Dylan at all. Paul
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
got the record (The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan) from a French DJ. For three weeks in Paris we didn't stop playing it. We all went potty about Dylan."
Cover art
The album cover features a photograph of Dylan with Suze RotoloSuze Rotolo
Susan Elizabeth Rotolo , known as Suze Rotolo , was an American artist, but is perhaps best known as Bob Dylan's girlfriend between 1961 and 1964 and a strong influence on his music...
. It was taken in February 1963—a few weeks after Rotolo had returned from Italy—by CBS
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
staff photographer Don Hunstein at the corner of Jones Street and West 4th Street in Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
, New York City, close to the apartment where the couple lived at the time. In 2008, Rotolo described the circumstances surrounding the famous photo to The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
: "He wore a very thin jacket, because image was all. Our apartment was always cold, so I had a sweater on, plus I borrowed one of his big, bulky sweaters. On top of that I put on a coat. So I felt like an Italian sausage. Every time I look at that picture, I think I look fat." In her memoir, A Freewheelin' Time, Rotolo analyzed the significance of the cover image:
Critic Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...
summed up the iconic impact of the cover as "a photograph that inspired countless young men to hunch their shoulders, look distant, and let the girl do the clinging".
The album was re-released in 2010 with new liner notes by Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a much broader framework of culture and politics than is customary in pop music journalism.-Life and career:Marcus was born in San Francisco...
.
Legacy
The success of Freewheelin transformed the public perception of Dylan. Before the album's release, he was one amongst many folk-singers. Afterwards, at the age of 22, Dylan was regarded as a major artist, perhaps even a spokesman for disaffected youth. As one critic described the transformation, "In barely over a year, a young plagiarist had been reborn as a songwriter of substance, and his first album of fully realized original material got the 1960s off their musical starting block." Janet Maslin wrote of the album: "These were the songs that established him as the voice of his generation—someone who implicitly understood how concerned young Americans felt about nuclear disarmamentNuclear disarmament
Nuclear disarmament refers to both the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons and to the end state of a nuclear-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated....
and the growing movement for civil rights: his mixture of moral authority and nonconformity was perhaps the most timely of his attributes."
This title of "Spokesman of a Generation" was viewed by Dylan with disgust in later years. He came to feel it was a label that the media had pinned on him, and in his autobiography, Chronicles, Dylan wrote: "The press never let up. Once in a while I would have to rise up and offer myself for an interview so they wouldn't beat the door down. Later an article would hit the streets with the headline "Spokesman Denies That He's A Spokesman". I felt like a piece of meat that someone had thrown to the dogs."
The album secured for Dylan an "unstoppable cult following" of fans who preferred the harshness of his performances to the softer cover versions released by other singers. Richard Williams
Richard Williams (journalist)
Richard Williams is a British music and sports journalist.As a writer, then deputy editor, of the weekly rock magazine Melody Maker, he became an influential commentator on the rise of new forms of rock music at the end of the 1960s. Williams and MM, as it was known, helped to promote and...
has suggested that the richness of the imagery in Freewheelin transformed Dylan into a key performer for a burgeoning college audience hungry for a new cultural complexity: "For students whose exam courses included Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
and Yeats, here was something that flattered their expanding intellect while appealing to the teenage rebel in their early-sixties souls. James Dean
James Dean
James Byron Dean was an American film actor. He is a cultural icon, best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause , in which he starred as troubled Los Angeles teenager Jim Stark...
had walked around reading James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
; here were both in a single package, the words and the attitude set to music." Andy Gill adds that in the few months between the release of Freewheelin in May 1963, and Dylan's next album The Times They Are A-Changin'
The Times They Are a-Changin'
The Times They Are a-Changin opens with the title track, one of Dylan's most famous songs. Dylan's friend, Tony Glover, recalls visiting Dylan's apartment in September 1963, where he saw a number of song manuscripts and poems lying on a table. "The Times They Are a-Changin'" had yet to be recorded,...
in January 1964, Dylan became the hottest property in American music, stretching the boundaries of what had been previously viewed as a collegiate folk music audience.
Critical opinion about Freewheelin has been consistently favorable in the years since its release. Dylan biographer Howard Sounes
Howard Sounes
Howard Sounes is a British author, journalist and biographer.Howard Sounes began his career as a newspaper journalist as a staff reporter for the Sunday Mirror. He broke major stories concerning one of the most notorious murder cases in British criminal history, that of Fred West and Rosemary West...
called it "Bob Dylan's first great album". In a survey of Dylan’s work published by Q
Q (magazine)
Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology...
magazine in 2000, the Freewheelin’ album was described as “easily the best of [Dylan’s] acoustic albums and a quantum leap from his debut—which shows the frantic pace at which Dylan’s mind was moving.” The magazine went on to comment, “You can see why this album got the Beatles listening. The songs at its core must have sounded like communiques from another plane.”
For Patrick Humphries, "rarely has one album so effectively reflected the times which produced it. Freewheelin spoke directly to the concerns of its audience. and addressed them in a mature and reflective manner: it mirrored the state of the nation." Stephen Thomas Erlewine’s
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine is a senior editor for Allmusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for Allmusic, as well as a freelance writer, occasionally contributing liner notes. He is also frontman and guitarist for the Ann Arbor-based band Who Dat?Erlewine is the nephew...
verdict on the album in the Allmusic guide was: “It's hard to overestimate the importance of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, the record that firmly established Dylan as an unparalleled songwriter ... This is rich, imaginative music, capturing the sound and spirit of America as much as that of Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
, Hank Williams, or Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
. Dylan, in many ways, recorded music that equaled this, but he never topped it.”
In March 2000, Van Morrison
Van Morrison
Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...
told the Irish rock magazine Hot Press about the impact that Freewheelin made on him: "I think I heard it in a record shop in Smith Street. And I just thought it was incredible that this guy's not singing about 'moon in June' and he's getting away with it. That's what I thought at the time. The subject matter wasn't pop songs, ya know, and I thought this kind of opens the whole thing up ... Dylan put it into the mainstream that this could be done."
Freewheelin was one of 50 recordings chosen by the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
to be added to the National Recording Registry
National Recording Registry
The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States." The registry was established by the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, which created the National Recording...
in 2002. The citation read: "This album is considered by some to be the most important collection of original songs issued in the 1960s. It includes "Blowin' in the Wind," the era's popular and powerful protest anthem." The following year, Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine ranked it number 97 on their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is the title of a 2003 special issue of American magazine Rolling Stone, and a related book published in 2005.Related news articles:...
(this ranking would later be changed to number 98 in the published book version of the list).
Track listing
All songs by Bob Dylan, except where noted:Side one
- "Blowin' in the WindBlowin' in the Wind"Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan and released on his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in 1963. Although it has been described as a protest song, it poses a series of questions about peace, war and freedom...
" – 2:48 - "Girl from the North CountryGirl from the North Country"Girl from the North Country" is a song written by Bob Dylan. It was first released in 1963 as the second track on Dylan's second studio album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. Dylan re-recorded the song as a duet with Johnny Cash in 1969. That recording became the first track on Nashville Skyline,...
" – 3:22 - "Masters of WarMasters of War"Masters of War" is a song by Bob Dylan, written over the winter of 1962-63 and released on the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in the spring of 1963. The song's melody was adapted from the traditional "Nottamun Town"...
" – 4:34 - "Down the Highway" – 3:27
- "Bob Dylan's BluesBob Dylan's Blues"Bob Dylan's Blues" is a song written by Bob Dylan and released in 1963 on the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.-Recording sessions:"Bob Dylan's Blues" was recorded on July 9, 1962, during the third Freewheelin session. Dylan recorded several new compositions that day, including "Blowin' in the...
" – 2:23 - "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna FallA Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall"A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" is a song written by Bob Dylan in the summer of 1962. It was first recorded in Columbia Records' Studio A on 6 December 1962 for his second album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The lyric structure is based on the question and answer form of the traditional ballad "Lord...
" – 6:55
Side two
- "Don't Think Twice, It's All RightDon't Think Twice, It's All Right"Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1962, and released on the 1963 album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.-Context:...
" – 3:40 - "Bob Dylan's DreamBob Dylan's Dream"Bob Dylan's Dream" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1963. It was recorded by Dylan on April 24, 1963, and was released by Columbia Records a month later on the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan....
" – 5:03 - "Oxford TownOxford Town"Oxford Town" is a song written by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in 1962. It was recorded in Columbia's Studio A on 6 December 1962 for his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan....
" – 1:50 - "Talkin' World War III Blues" – 6:28
- "Corrina, Corrina" (Traditional) – 2:44
- "Honey, Just Allow Me One More ChanceHoney, Just Allow Me One More Chance"Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance" is a song recorded by Henry Thomas in 1928. The song was covered by Bob Dylan on his 1963 album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan....
" (Dylan, Henry ThomasHenry Thomas (blues musician)Henry Thomas was an American pre-World War II country blues singer, songster and musician. He was often billed as "Ragtime Texas".-Life and career:Thomas was born in Big Sandy, Texas, United States....
) – 2:01 - "I Shall Be Free" – 4:49
Some very early first pressing copies contained 4 songs that were ultimately replaced by Columbia on all subsequent pressings. These songs were "Rocks And Gravel", "Let Me Die In My Footsteps," "Gamblin' Willie's Dead Man's Hand" and "Talkin' John Birch Blues". Copies of the "original" version of "Freewheelin'" (in both mono and stereo) are very rare and fetch hefty sums on the collectors market.
The original track listing was as follows:
Side one
- "Blowin' in the WindBlowin' in the Wind"Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan and released on his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in 1963. Although it has been described as a protest song, it poses a series of questions about peace, war and freedom...
" – 2:46 - "Rocks and Gravel" – 2:21
- "Let Me Die In My Footsteps" – 4:05
- "Down the Highway" – 3:10
- "Bob Dylan's BluesBob Dylan's Blues"Bob Dylan's Blues" is a song written by Bob Dylan and released in 1963 on the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.-Recording sessions:"Bob Dylan's Blues" was recorded on July 9, 1962, during the third Freewheelin session. Dylan recorded several new compositions that day, including "Blowin' in the...
" – 2:19 - "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna FallA Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall"A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" is a song written by Bob Dylan in the summer of 1962. It was first recorded in Columbia Records' Studio A on 6 December 1962 for his second album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The lyric structure is based on the question and answer form of the traditional ballad "Lord...
" – 6:48
Side two
- "Don't Think Twice, It's All RightDon't Think Twice, It's All Right"Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1962, and released on the 1963 album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.-Context:...
" – 3:37 - "Gamblin' Willie's Dead Man's Hand" – 4:11
- "Oxford TownOxford Town"Oxford Town" is a song written by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in 1962. It was recorded in Columbia's Studio A on 6 December 1962 for his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan....
" – 1:47 - "Corrina, Corrina" (Traditional) – 2:42
- "Talkin' John Birch Blues" – 3:45
- "Honey, Just Allow Me One More ChanceHoney, Just Allow Me One More Chance"Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance" is a song recorded by Henry Thomas in 1928. The song was covered by Bob Dylan on his 1963 album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan....
" (Dylan, Henry ThomasHenry Thomas (blues musician)Henry Thomas was an American pre-World War II country blues singer, songster and musician. He was often billed as "Ragtime Texas".-Life and career:Thomas was born in Big Sandy, Texas, United States....
) – 1:57 - "I Shall Be Free" – 4:46
Personnel
- Bob DylanBob DylanBob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
– guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, harmonicaHarmonicaThe harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
, keyboardsKeyboard instrumentA keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
, vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments... - Bruce LanghorneBruce LanghorneBruce Langhorne is an American folk musician. He was active in the Greenwich Village folk scene in the 1960s, primarily as a session guitarist for folk albums and performances...
– guitar - Howard Collins – guitar
- Leonard GaskinLeonard GaskinLeonard Gaskin was an American jazz bassist born in New York City.Gaskin played on the early bebop scene at Minton's and Monroe's in New York in the early 1940s...
– bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick.... - George BarnesGeorge Barnes (musician)George Barnes was a world-renowned swing jazz guitarist, who claimed he played the first electric guitar in 1931, preceding Charlie Christian by six years. George Barnes made the first recording of an electric guitar in 1938 in sessions with Big Bill Broonzy.-Biography:George Barnes was born in...
– bass guitar - Gene RameyGene RameyGene Ramey was an American jazz double bassist.Ramey was born in Austin, Texas, and played trumpet in college, but switched to sousaphone when playing with George Corley's Royal Aces, The Moonlight Serenaders, and Terrence Holder. In 1932 he moved to Kansas City and took up the bass, studying with...
– double bassDouble bassThe double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2... - Herb Lovelle – drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
- Dick WellstoodDick WellstoodRichard MacQueen "Dick" Wellstood was an American jazz pianist...
– pianoPianoThe piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal... - John HammondJohn H. HammondJohn Henry Hammond II was an American record producer, musician and music critic from the 1930s to the early 1980s...
– producerRecord producerA record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music... - Tom Wilson – producer
- Nat HentoffNat HentoffNathan Irving "Nat" Hentoff is an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media and writes regularly on jazz and country music for The Wall Street Journal....
– liner notesLiner notesLiner notes are the writings found in booklets which come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for vinyl records and cassettes.-Origin:... - Don Hunstein – album cover photographer
Charts
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1963 | Billboard 200 | 22 |
| 1964 | UK Top 75 | 1 |